The Leech by Robert Sheckley
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"The Leech" by Phillips Barbee is a science fiction novel written in the early 1950s. The story revolves around a monstrous, extraterrestrial life form that resembles a leech, which awakens after landing on Earth and begins to consume everything in its path. As its insatiable hunger drives it to grow uncontrollably, a battle ensues between the natural phenomena of this alien creature and the military’s attempts to contain and ultimately destroy it.
The plot follows Professor Micheals, who discovers the leech when it begins to disrupt his peaceful summer. As the leech grows, devouring soil, structures, and eventually the military's attempted interventions, it becomes an insidious threat that the government seeks to eliminate. General O'Donnell, determined to assert military dominance, proposes drastic measures such as nuclear bombs to destroy the leech. However, as the creature reacts unpredictably and continues to grow, it becomes clear that brute force may not be the solution. In a climactic twist, the military’s efforts to destroy the leech inadvertently lead to its spread across the universe in the form of microscopic spores, raising questions about humanity's relationship with the unknown and its tendency towards destruction. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Sheckley, Robert, 1928-2005 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Connell |
| Title | The Leech |
| Series Title | Produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1952. |
| Credits |
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 78.3 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 29525 |
| ISBN (HTML) | 979-8-238-29525-1 |
| Release Date | Jul 27, 2009 |
| Last Update | Jan 5, 2021 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 228 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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